


Happy Motherfucking Birthday, Dave Strider

by forgetful01



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Birthday, Humanstuck, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-10 05:57:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12905547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgetful01/pseuds/forgetful01
Summary: dave has a birthday, probably one of his best





	Happy Motherfucking Birthday, Dave Strider

You almost had forgotten what day it even was.

Well, in actuality, you had. You were never much for celebrations that don't fall into the 'wild and loose'category and birthday parties were definitely not that. They were for sticky little kids at a Chuck E. Cheese begging their parents for more tokens for crappy, mind numbing games with shitty plastic prizes as their only promise of salvation. You've never even stepped foot into one of those places. The carpets are weird and trippy anyway.

Plus, Bro never really celebrated your birthday. One day, once a year, he'd come unannounced into your room to fling some newspaper wrapped thing at you and leave without much more word on the subject than that nonverbal display of what you've grown to refer as: basic-ass parenting. The bare minimum. You never came to expect more than that.

Gamzee on the other hand revels in birthdays. You've seen the way he had a tendency to overblow Karkat's just last year: with a giant projector and about a months worth of romantic comedies just for him. Chocolate cake and a fudge fountain. Balloons everywhere. It was a god damn mess.

But you'd enjoyed it. Not that anybody was that surprised that Gamzee, who practically worshiped the very ground that Karkat stomped across, would go all out for him. And you told yourself as you forced down the shitty pink lemonaid (the drink of choice of fucking course) that you didn't feel jealous. Didn't feel slighted. Didn't feel a god damn thing.

After all you weren't dating Karkat. No, that ship had sailed long ago. You two had dated though once upon a time back in high school. Ninth grade and going into tenth if your ungodly photographic memory was anything to go by. You'd been all over him and he'd, in some ways, would return the favor. And things had been nice. You came out as bisexual for him. He'd already known he was pansexual. You hadn't even known what the fuck that was until he explained it. If by explained you meant sent page long texts going on and on and on. You liked when he ranted. It filled up the silence you were terrified of. And it let you shut the hell up.

Gamzee doesn't talk like that. His words are long and slow but exceedingly simple if you can wrap your mind around his bastardization of the english language and complete disregard for even the most basic grammar structures. He leaves extended pauses in between his replies; like he'd either gotten distracted or he'd really been thinking so hard about whatever you said that it took a great deal of time to formulate his own thoughts on it. When you'd asked him out, about three months and two days and twelve hours after Karkat had abruptly dumped your ass, he'd accepted readily and eagerly. You hadn't even known he liked you romantically. You just didn't want to be alone and well, he was available. That'd put you and Karkat and an even more awkward standing.

Not that you blame Karkat. It had been fun while it lasted but it wasn't an endgame sort of scenario. Both young and in school still, it was natural to want to broaden your horizons. You didn't even want to cast a glance to the window to so much as catch a glimpse of a horizon. 

Gamzee almost always spoke in future tenses. The present was fine by his accounts but he would only comment on it when it was in a positive light: i.e. how happy you made him, how funny you are. Shit like that. If things were going bad then all you'd hear about is 'someday'. Sometimes you wished he didn't do that. Sometimes you wish you could escape to the past regardless of how miserable it made you even now. 

He'd never had a head for dates or numbers or really anything along those lines. Which is why you were taken aback when he'd arrived at your apartment at 6:50 in the fucking morning the very day of your birthday with his arms full of bags. Presents in the forms of bags of chips, soda bottles, video games, bags of assorted candies, ice cream (your favorite flavor too, you noted) and on and on it went came spilling out of their plastic confinements. And you found yourself buried in your skinny little hallway up to your knees in gifts and quite literally feeling smothered and drowned by his affections. When was the last time you'd kissed him?

He's all beams and smiles and miracles of the day as he shuts the door behind him and spreads his arms wide to you. When you don't immediately jump into the embrace he does that for you. He wraps his arms under your armpits and practically lifts you off the floor like a ragdoll, swinging you from side to side. Kisses are raining down onto your cheeks and your jaw and suddenly you want nothing more than just to get the fuck away from him. You don't deserve him. You don't deserve this.

"Dude-" Is about the most you can get out before he's planting even more kisses on you and not for the first time you're reminded of a giant, dopey, shaggy dog. You grab one of his curls and give it a light tug to get his attention. It only half works. " _Dude._ " You say again with more emphasis.

"Whassit?" Gamzee finally pulls back enough to give you some god damn room to breathe. It isn't enough. You take a half step away from him and gesture at the mess surrounding you with almost an exasperated and frustrated air. 

"Gamz, what the fuck is all this?"

"S'you's birthing day, ain't it?" He doesn't ask this the usual way he does when he forgot something important, in that small and ashamed voice. He states it like like a fact. You feel the weight of it sinking into your chest. You can't believe he remembered. You'd only mentioned it in passing once, almost eight months ago. You hadn't planned on him remembering. But you'd certainly hoped he might have. Now though that he has, you feel sick.

"Yeah." You counter. "So."

"So!" He echoes with a look so tragic on his face that it makes you want to fucking cry over such a sad clown, "So! Shits on for the celebrate, ain't it?"

"When the fresh hell did I ever say I wanted a party?"

"Nevering to my own ears did you vouch on wanting one." Gamzee blinked at you so fucking bright eyed and dopey that you want to punch yourself for spitting on his thoughtfulness. You hate yourself so fucking much right now. "But shit ain't a party, on a technical. Just you an' me."

You try to not do a double-take at that but you do anyhow. Just the two of you? At Karkat's party there had been a small crowd of people to celebrate him. Why would he..

As if to answer your thoughts he shrugged. "Thought you'd be hankered to just us."

Your shoulders finally lower from their tensed fight-ready position and you look at the array of gifts, his shows of dedication. You don't deserve this praise. You don't really want it either.

But at the same time, you do.

Finally you return his smile with a slight upturned quirk of the corner of a lip and he fucking beams at that. He's so simple. Easy to please. 

"..Thanks, Gamz."

He gives that fucking chuckle-giggle at always tightens your chest and you two spend the rest of the day eating copious amounts of junk food, rotting your remaining brain cells with some of the shittiest gaming graphics you've ever seen, and content yourself to the bony warmth of his arms.

You could get kind of used to this.


End file.
